It Takes Zero Intelligence to Still Support Zero Tolerance in Schools

On the first day of kindergarten every year, public school teachers and administrators stand at their school portals with arms opened wide to embrace every child.

Teachers comfort every student readying their cerebral blank slate to be filled with the three R’s — reading, writing and arithmetic.

There is only one problem.

Kids don’t come to kindergarten with a tabula rasa mind, a blank slate of perceptions, ideas, thoughts and emotions. This may be true for the three R’s, but the experiences that have branded their brains from the moment of birth to that first day of kindergarten can make or break a kid’s chance for academic achievement.

What many educators don’t understand, much less are equipped to overcome, is the emotional baggage these little people bring to their classroom. Baggage that is not readily visible to us adults, but contains emotional pain that hurts so much inside those little brains that learning the three R’s becomes a titanic feat. The painful baggage dominates their thoughts, impeding their learning, and sends them on a trajectory toward an emotional iceberg waiting to sink them in adolescence.

Our systemic failure to respond to the needs of these very vulnerable children the moment they set foot into that kindergarten classroom later becomes OUR collective iceberg. We scramble to reduce crime, but become frustrated because our attempts are as futile as changing the course of the Titanic.

Futile because we waited too long to fix the underlying determinants of their delinquent conduct in adolescence. When that conduct appears, most juvenile justice systems treat the symptoms and not its causes. We chip away at the iceberg we see above the water, but never touch the real dangers that are hidden below.

We have become so naïve in our belief that education is the great equalizer, but the three R’s can’t equalize the damage trauma has done to brain development in a child. Educating hurting kids begins with healing the hurt before the learning can begin.

It doesn’t matter how great the teachers are or how much money we throw at education if we don’t configure our systems to be trauma-informed, to identify these wounded students for trauma-focused treatment.

It begins by removing harmful disciplinary practices that exacerbate trauma. Too many believe these zero tolerance policies deter future misconduct. This belief is fueled by the expedient consequences made possible by its most essential rule — no excuses, explanations or defenses.

There is no research demonstrating a deterrent effect or that zero tolerance policies make schools safer and improve school climate. There is also no evidence that these policies remove racial bias, as some proponents assert. On the contrary, kids of color in all studies are anywhere between four to six times more likely to be suspended or arrested than their white counterparts.

So why do so many educators still promote these ineffective practices?

My guess is it’s for their own convenience, though they would not admit such a selfish and harmful tactic.

Unless these educators are utterly ignorant of what works and what doesn’t in school disciplinary practices, the only reasonable explanation is that it serves their own interests and not those of the children.

Even the few who will admit its harmfulness fall back on the catchall phrase, “We don’t have the resources to try alternatives.” And so they accept what doesn’t work as the default for school discipline.

The advent of zero tolerance policies in public schools marked the erosion of “public” in our schools. Public schools aren’t “public” just because they accept every child in the beginning but promote a practice of zero tolerance that results in a selective process of educational extinction.

Zero tolerance is painless for the educators, but painful for the students.

Suspend, expel and arrest is the simple and effortless solution. However, it creates inconvenience for the rest of us down the road, not to mention the pain exacted on students who already suffer from trauma.

Pushing kids out of school pushes them to the streets and into the open arms of gangbangers and other insidious folks in need of accomplices and puppets. It’s the rest of us who pay the price for the laziness or ignorance of some educators.

They complain of being victimized by students, but their zero intelligence support of zero tolerance pushes these kids to alternative education, and I mean the alternative education found on the street that hand out diplomas for prostitution, drug dealing, robbing and gangbanging.

Why should we be surprised, knowing that traumatized people traumatize people.

What started as chronic disruption in schools has evolved to criminal activity on the streets. The only thing accomplished is a shifting of victims from one place to another, except that victims on the street suffer greater pain, including death.

And the sad irony is when one of these educators falls victim off-campus to a former student pushed out of school.

Who would ever think that keeping kids in school would increase graduation rates?

Despite the simplicity of this concept, one would think that educators with all their education would construct alternatives to suspensions and arrests that keep kids in school and target the trauma that causes their disruptive behavior.

This ignorance is unacceptable.

When we created the nation’s first school-justice partnership in 2003 to stop unnecessary school arrests, we had no resources, none whatsoever. Within six months the arrests declined 54 percent. Today they are down 91 percent; the suspension rate is below the 1995 rate; graduation rates have increased over 24 percent; and juvenile arrests in the county are down 71 percent.

And many others have followed in these steps with similar outcomes.

While whining about what they can’t do, too many educators fall back on zero tolerance policies that effectively push kids out of our public schools, mostly kids of color. That exciting first day of kindergarten is a façade hiding the ugly path to expulsion that is analogous to a genocidal selection process.

There comes a point in time when the unintended consequences of good-intentioned practices is no longer accepted as negligent. That’s when the published evidence of its harmfulness is notice to all that the continued practice constitutes purposeful intent.

Steven Teske is chief judge of the Juvenile Court of Clayton County, Ga., and vice chairman of the Governor's Office For Children and Families. He is a past president of the Council of Juvenile Court Judges and has been appointed by the governor to the Children & Youth Coordinating Council, DJJ Judicial Advisory Council, Commission on Family Violence, and the Governor's Office for Children and Families.

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Steven Teske is the chief presiding judge of the Juvenile Court of Clayton County, Georgia, and also sits as a designated judge of the Superior Court in adult civil and criminal matters. He has been appointed by the governor to the Judicial Advisory Council for the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Juvenile Justice State Advisory Group, Commission on Criminal Justice Reform and the JDAI Statewide Steering Council, which he serves as its chair. He is ex-president of the Georgia Council of Juvenile Court Judges and served two terms on the Federal Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice. He is former member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and chaired its School Pathways Committee. He is the national chair of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and has testified before Congress numerous times on juvenile justice reform.

7 thoughts on “It Takes Zero Intelligence to Still Support Zero Tolerance in Schools”

Judge Teske,
I am Charles Muse, Age 72, grandfather of two biracial young men. I have been the father figure in both young men’s life. One, will graduate from Law School next year. It was not a simple matter for a caucasian grandfather to guide his two pride and joy grandsons, one to LS, the other to high school
For the past two years I have been addressing a matter with Science Hill High School in Johnson City. Tennessee. The young one was involved in an off-campus school boy 60 second altercation, no weapons, and only self-serving pride suffered. Gavin, my grandson, was given a 180 days expulsion, charged with assault(near went to juvenie court, dismissed). He has not been able to attend public school since May 11, 2015. The youngster has been diagnose with ADHD. The honorable Sharon Green of the Johnson Juvenile Court is familiar with Gavin’s tryst. I would like permission to use quotes from you article in the JJIE.Org website. I use direct quotes with no paraphrase and give credits. thank you sir

The most important person in a village is the pregnant woman. What happens to her happens to the fetus. Native Americans have attempted to say this since 1492.! I’m grateful this truth is finally being acknowledged.

Somehow, I vividly recall parts of my kindergarten and elementary school years. Kindergarten was exceptionally painful. As I now understand what happened to me then, I realize that I spent most of the time being dissociated in order to try to cope with what was going on at home. From kindergarten through to grade 3, I just barely managed to pass and move on to the next year. All my report cards (I still have them today) were showing ‘C’ and ‘D’ grades. There were plenty of comments by the teachers that I “…was not paying enough attention…”, or that I was “…drifting into another world…”. This went on throughout most of my elementary education. Nobody picked up on this, nor did anything to help.
When I finally managed to reach high school, I was intellectually developed enough to be able to sufficiently function and get passing grades. I hid my emotional world from everyone. Inside, it was chaos and constant fear. Terrifying, all-encompassing, irrational, and mortal fear.
I always had the sense that somehow I was different from everyone else. That I never “got it” as to what was going on around me or what people were doing. I later came to understand that I was injured during my developmental stage so that I grew up with an attachment disorder.
Eventually, I entered GEGEP (a 2-year pre-university program) and promptly dropped out. I was only interested in math, science, and computers. All the other courses such as literature and humanities made absolutely no sense to me at all. Being self-taught in computer science, mathematics, and electronics, I found the computer and math classes not challenging enough to keep my attention.
After two attempts at two different CEGEPs, I eventually dropped out and started working as a self-taught engineer in the pulp and paper industry. As a result of my developmental trauma, dealing with people was a nightmare. Every day was fraught with high anxiety and intense fear. So much, that some days I could not work at all. Eventually, I became deeply depressed and unable to function for a year.
Once my depression lifted, I decided to go back to school and get my engineering degree. I worked during the summer to save up money and pay for the school year. Again, I did this all while experiencing intense fear and anxiety. It was as if I was trying to live in the middle of a war zone with imminent death waiting at every turn.
It took me many extra years to finally graduate. I was working at effectively a 10% capacity, the rest being dedicated to dealing with anxiety and fear. Everything took so much longer and was so much harder to do because of this. There were many times when I felt like quitting because it was just so hard.
The rest of my life to-date pretty much follows the same pattern. Difficulty concentrating, difficulty forming lasting relationships, isolation, intense loneliness, and intense fear.
I write this as a witness to the effects of adverse childhood experiences. I have lived my entire life emotionally crippled and literally many dozens of people who could have helped over the years (teachers, managers, friends, family) did nothing as they had no clue to what actually happened to me.
You are 100% right when you write “Kids don’t come to kindergarten with a tabula rasa mind, a blank slate of perceptions, ideas, thoughts and emotions. This may be true for the three R’s, but the experiences that have branded their brains from the moment of birth to that first day of kindergarten can make or break a kid’s chance for academic achievement.”
The key word here is “experiences”.
At its core, no one ever helped me integrate what I had experienced as a child so that I could continue my development. No one ever comforted or helped me understand what happened to me. So, my brain became wired to experience people as dangerous rather than as helpful resources.
Until we as a society come to understand and accept how adverse childhood experiences can cripple a person’s ability to form secure attachments, we will continue to see more crime, violence, drugs, promiscuity, etc. as these are really just self-taught methods of trying to self-soothe and self-nurture in a world where people are perceived as dangerous and non-responsive to ones needs.

Daniel,
This is incredibly insightful and well-written. Have you considered writing more about your life experience and what you have done to recover? I’d also be interested in whether you have thoughts on what interventions might have been effective at different points in your life.